


She Holds What Heaven Cannot

by Anam_Writes



Series: princes love dragons; it's just a fact [9]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Claudeleth Week (Fire Emblem), Comfort, F/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, One Shot, Secret Relationship, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:01:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25382761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anam_Writes/pseuds/Anam_Writes
Summary: Ever since he was a boy, the night sky had remained largely quiet in the transference. He could interpret the chill air as their embrace, their blinking as kisses, their silence as listening. It was easier that way. It worked less and less when she returned....Claude visits Byleth late in the night for some quality time and comfort.
Relationships: My Unit | Byleth/Claude von Riegan
Series: princes love dragons; it's just a fact [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1610308
Comments: 10
Kudos: 64
Collections: Claudeleth Week 2020





	She Holds What Heaven Cannot

Claude was used to a strictly distributed regimen when it came to his own care. Fate and faith, strength and joy - these things were his to handle, to cultivate, to have. Dreams and doubts, fear and tears - he took them off his shoulders when they grew too heavy and left them with the stars. 

Ever since he was a boy, the night sky had remained largely quiet in the transference. He could interpret the chill air as their embrace, their blinking as kisses, their silence as listening. It was easier that way. It worked less and less when she returned. 

Fell Star, he'd heard the enemy call Byleth, with disdain and bile ripping from their teeth with the sound. 

If she was a star, he thought, and she had truly fallen, then this was quite the message. The sky had tired of him, it would seem. It had snatched one of its own from their ranks, thrown her down to the earth and made her the sole courier of his burdens. 

It seemed an unfair job for one so young; yet he was younger once, and not so much older now. That either have to carry the burden was unthinkable, in a perfect world. Their world was not that, however. And were Claude a perfect man, he'd spare her his burdens and attempt to find some relief at the altar of the stars, no matter how deaf they'd become to him. Let the record show, he was not a perfect man. 

He went to her - dreams and doubts, fears and tears in tow. 

It was the height of impropriety for the Duke of Leicester to knock on his Commander's door in the small hours. It was a new height of impropriety that she should answer him, adorned in naught but a thin, sheer nightgown and mint green silk robe. That she plucked him by the deep, hanging angle of his tunic to display him as a flower in her room was the greatest offense they made in the doorway. That he spread himself out on her bed, as a groom spreads primrose on a wedding night, was the worst offense they made past the doorway. 

There was no need to interpret from her the embrace, the kisses, the listening he required; it was real and straightforward. She was real and straightforward. 

Byleth set her arms to the task of holding him, her lips to kiss his cheek, his closed eyes, his lips. Her ear bent towards him as he whispered her name between admission of weakness - no, vulnerability, he reminded himself. 

To be weak was an illusion, to be vulnerable was natural. He was glad to be so, too: natural, vulnerable. It allowed a rawness, an intimacy, he had yet to share with any but her. 

He had been kissed and kissed before. Still, he felt this a first, marked this a first. He held it tight to his chest and clutched her even tighter there still. 

When she was done pulling his pains from his mouth, tasting them on her tongue and banishing them from her room, he laid her down. 

Byleth's robe ran askew, her face an uncharacterly pink. Her hair was mussed, splayed to its full length and volume across her pillow. Her chest heaved with breath. Her lips were swollen and glistening in the candlelight. Claude used the image to remind himself his Byleth was not a star, but a woman: an imperfect one. 

"Tea?" He asked. He stood from her bed before she could answer. With the pot he'd gifted - alight with Almyran runes that kept her water heated and fresh throughout the day - he poured them the water. He dipped chamomile into each cup - a light rushed steeping that had him pressing each back into the wall of the cups with a spoon - and presented her with the results. 

It was not the best brew, not so good as hers, but it would need to do. She did not let him into her rooms for his excellent palette, after all. She'd have taken Lorenz for a lover, were that her point of interest. 

Byleth sat on his knee, sipped her tea, and breathed in the chamomile like it was the last she'd ever catch the scent. 

"Will you stay with me tonight?" 

If he agreed that would be the new most improper thing they'd done behind closed doors. Emotions were high, they didn't know exactly what tomorrow would bring. Claude would not make that decision under circumstances like these. 

He kissed her on the cheek at her next sip of tea. "Another night."

"Maybe," Byleth spoke into the porcelain rim. 

"Definitely," he said. "I promise another night."

She noted the lack of a pause. It was enough for her to hand him her only half-finished cup. He leaned over, adjusting her on his knee so he could leave the tea on her pulled out table. 

"We'll have another night?" She asked. 

And here it was: her burdens. 

Claude pulled her close into him. Her head rested against him. He took the frown from her lips, pressed his smile there for her to echo. 

"I promised, didn't I?" He said.

"And we'll have another night after that?"

Claude chuckled, kissing a trail down Byleth's neck. "And another after that," he assured with a peck. "And then another." Another peck. "And another." He nipped at the junction between shoulder and throat. 

"How are you so sure?" She asked the question into his mess of curls. 

Byleth's hand reached to brush tendrils from his forehead, to tuck hair behind his ear, to follow the path of his beard down the sharp edge of his jaw to his chin. With two fingers she pulled his face up for a kiss, warm and chaste. 

"I know," Claude said when he pulled away, "because you lead the charge. You won't let me fall. I know."

The candles burned down over the next hour and the teapot was emptied. It was Claude's queue to leave. 

They shared another kiss before he crossed the threshold. Her fingers still pinched at his shirt as he stepped through the door, as though he were the stem of a delicate bud she needed desperately to place in water before he was swept away in the breeze. 

He didn't tell her he loved her, but he did. He hoped she knew when he smiled at her, wished her goodnight, thanked her. 

"Sleep well," she told him, when he finally managed to pry white fabric from her grasp. 

"I'll sleep better, my friend," he said. 

Claude walked beneath blinking, silent stars in the chill night air, back to his rooms. 

Another night, he told himself. There would be a lifetime's worth of nights.


End file.
